Not two, but three Tyrant Wyrms awaited their army on the field, almost as if excited for the coming battle. But Sol saw immediately that two of these Wyrms were very different from the Wyrms they had seen so far: they were smaller, sleeker, and shivered with anticipation... and Sol thought that there was a visible hierarchy in the way that these smaller Wyrms seemed to obey the larger one... and it clearly wasn't just out of animal instinct.
It warned Sol of what was yet to come... just as the way the Wyrms waited told her that there was something more nefarious, more malicious, than simply hellbeasts going out of control. But she was distracted by the fact that when she ordered her army to halt, Veliouna mimicked her, telling her own deathless army to stop... and then looking at Sol in a way that somehow made her feel patronized, even as the Goddess of Cursed Shades treated her with deference.
Sol strode forwards towards the Wyrms as they waited for her, and she hated that Veliuona joined her, walking beside her like an equal. It frustrated, angered, and distracted her... and her feelings seemed all the more amplified here in the presence of the Wyrm. Just as she felt like she could sense Veliuona's secretive smile, and the eyes of the undead abomination lingering on her, watching her, studying her every movement...
But Veliuona had no plans to move against Sol, or to deride her: she, too, could feel the miasma and the emotional toxicity given off by the Wyrm, but in her, it caused fear, an emotion that the deathless goddess had not felt for a long time, and one she would do anything to get rid of. All the same, it was very hard for her to bow her head to Sol; harder still for her to whisper to the mare that she would do as she asked.
It was hard for Sol to pull herself out of her anger... but she did, all the same, and forced her rage to instead focus on the Wyrm instead of Veliuona. To put the hatred she had for this undead monster before her, and sharpen her focus like a blade, as she looked up at the Wyrm. And the Wyrm looked back at her, before it said in its terrible, dark language, in words that her mind could barely handle and yet all the same understood:
We know you, swordmaiden.
Sol didn't know why, but those words chilled her... and drove such a spike of fury through her, that she could not stop herself from lashing out in pain. Pain, and anger, and memory that was still nothing but blurs... but there was something there, all the same. Eyes, watching her. The scent of blood. And laughter. Cruel, cold laughter...
When Sol next was aware, the Wyrms were dead. The smaller beasts had been almost too easy to destroy: they did not sing like the larger Wyrm did. But even the larger Wyrm had not fought hard: it had almost seemed eager to die, as a matter of fact. As if death was merely the fastest way it had to leave the battlefield, and return to its waiting Master...
That was a thought that chilled Sol to the core. But when she looked at Veliuona, she did so with impassive eyes, and a thankless heart. Even though the Goddess had fought beside her and even submitted to her will, she still could see her as nothing less than an enemy, be it spiritual or political, if not physically a foe right now.
And Sol would not show any mercy for her foes.
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